


With love

by WahlBuilder



Category: Mars: War Logs, The Technomancer (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Autistic Technomancers, Fights, Gen, Mental Breakdown, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-22
Updated: 2019-01-22
Packaged: 2019-10-14 16:22:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17511932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WahlBuilder/pseuds/WahlBuilder
Summary: Tenacity witnesses a fight between Sean and Roy. It doesn't go well for anyone.





	With love

Tenacity tenses as he hears a raised voice. He knows that voice and that tone, has been on the receiving end several times—but there is a twist to them that he has grown to associate with particular situations.

So he puts down his book, shushes Temperance, and follows the voice to Roy’s room.

Just as he suspected, Sean and Roy are fighting. Now he needs to decide what to do.

It’s not the first time they are fighting, and he doubts it will be the last. Sean grows pale and cold and tall when they do—while Roy is raging, his face twisted, a snarl in his words.

They fight so terribly.

He’s gotten used to their relationship. There are no two other people so different and yet so alike at the same time (in a way that siblings are, that twins are). An understanding of superficial hiding a misunderstanding of deeper things—running into the alignment of the core. Being around them when they click is like watching a storm from far away: a grandiose beauty, unstoppable. Being around them when they grate against each other is the same—only you are right in the storm that threatens to tear you apart.

‘I don’t see _you_ going there and asking them to lock you up.’ Sean’s tone is neutral, though louder than usual, arms crossed on his chest. Even in a dusty jacket with a hood, without wires, he looks as though he’s wearing the grey uniform of his Order. Tight, composed.

Roy, opposite of him, is swept by emotion, shoulders squared, legs bent at the knee, fingers curled and twitching.

Tenacity thinks he might need to physically stand between them.

And the thing is, the two know each other, and going cold and arrogant is characteristic of Sean, yes… But maybe he also he does this to rile Roy up. it is cruelty that only siblings know, and impart generously to each other.

‘They experimented on people!’ Roy throws words like lightnings: hot and burning everything in their wake—but Sean, too, is a Technomancer.

‘You have said more than once that Aurorans form groups, cliques, haven’t you? Do you even allow the thought that not all of them participated in it?’

Tenacity understands what they are talking about—and understands that these words would strike Roy in vulnerable spots: the implication that, no matter what, he is an Auroran Technomancer, intimate with the knowledge of them through _being_ one of them, for ever.

Tenacity is torn between punching Sean and being impressed.

‘What do _you_ know, from just killing them?’

And this, right back at Sean, and try as he might to control it, his face twitches, his eyes narrow. Roy knows his vulnerabilities, too.

Sometimes, Tenacity envies Sean, envies him Technomancy, something that he shares with Roy that Tenacity will never have, never will be able to bring Roy comfort through sharing it. But other times, he thinks it’s good that Roy left the Source and the side of his kin.

Sean leans to Roy, face-mask cracking. ‘No Technomancers will. Ever. Be locked up again. Ever!’

‘We should be. Maybe that’s the only way, that’s what we deserve—’

‘No.’

‘We are freaks, brother—’

‘No!’

‘And we should be kept in a cage, chained like the—’

Tenacity’s heart drops when Sean lunges, and he realises he won’t be between them in time—but instead of striking Roy like he expects, Sean takes Roy’s face in his hands.

‘We are _people_ ,’ Sean whispers, his face a shattering mirror of Roy’s. He brings their foreheads together and closes his eyes tight, and Roy grips his wrist (glove to glove)—whether to push him away or to stop him from pulling away, Tenacity doesn’t know.

‘We are not cattle to be kept behind a fence and to be let out on a whim, to be bred and trained and…’ Sean grits his teeth. ‘We are not rifles to be kept in a locker. We are _people_ , Roy. And we deserve, we _will_ be treated like people, with all out misdeeds and all our—’

‘I should have never left.’

It falls into silence—but then Sean’s fingers touch the connectors on Roy’s temple.

When a jellyfish in a bloom gets agitated and starts floating up, others wraps their stingers around it.

When a hound in a pack is growling and bending low, spines raised, others touch it with their antennae to reassure it.

‘Roy. Roy, we are not crazy. _You_ are not crazy.’

‘Let me go.’

And Sean does, dropping his hands, stepping back… Only, Roy is still holding his wrist.

‘I will kill _anyone_ who tries to lock you up for being a Technomancer, Roy.’ Sean says it quietly, his face set, and Tenacity knows it’s true. It’s not a threat or a promise—it is the reality, and Sean will make it so.

‘You know, Roy, I second that.’ He steps into the room.

Roy startles so badly, gaze darting to him, and he clenches his fists—and backs away. ‘Fuck off, Tenacity. Both of you. I don’t need your fucking protection. I don’t need _anything_ from you. I don’t _want_ anything from you, except for leaving me alone. This is not even about me!’

‘Isn’t it?’ Tenacity murmurs.

‘Fuck you!’

Roy looks haunted, hunted down.

‘This isn’t how family works,’ Sean points out.

‘You are not my family! I didn’t choose you!’

Spirits of the plains and the Shadow. ‘You did. When you chose to not kill me, when you saved Sean, when you saved Inno—’

‘Don’t drag him into this!’ Roy snaps. ‘Why don’t you leave me alone?’

‘Roy—’

Tenacity decides it’s the time to take over. ‘All right. We’ll leave. Take your time, Roy. But please, try not to leave without… Without notifying us at least,’ he manages to finish. And before Roy hurts them, or himself, even more, he goes to the doorway. ‘Come on, Sean.’

Sean doesn’t leave right away—but doesn’t speak more either while Tenacity waits outside. Sean sets off down the hall and sinks on the nearest bench with a weary sigh.

Tenacity understands him.

‘Will he leave, Tenacity?’

He feels a prickling of satisfaction that there is something he knows about Roy better than Sean. ‘Can’t tell. He might, he might not.’

‘I don’t want him to leave,’ Sean murmurs, stroking the glove on his right hand.

This sentiment, they share.

‘It is his decision alone. We can only wait.’


End file.
